7 fundamental electronic mail administration greatest practices and suggestions

Managing email is a time consuming task.

Did you know that the average professional receives 121 Emails every day?

For most working people as much as 28% of their working week is simply spent reading and replying to emails.

So it’s no wonder that we’re constantly overwhelmed by emails – and that makes us less productive at work.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

If you are able to bring structure and organization into the management of e-mails, life becomes easier.

You have more time to yourself and can work more effectively.

Let’s take a look at some proven email management tactics and strategies.

1. Assign email times in your calendar

Just as you take time for yourself, you should include structured time in your schedule for your emails.

This is important as an average employee is close to his or her email. checked 74 times a day!

That is a lot of time, energy and effort consumed to do something that doesn’t necessarily require that much mental range.

But here’s the thing: emails might not seem as intrusive as a phone call, but they end up being a lot more stressful.

As professionals, we often worry, keep checking our inboxes, and end up losing focus on the things that really matter.

This brings us to the most basic strategy: Schedule a fixed time every day for processing emails.

You can do this in one go or spread out blocks of time over the day for email only.

Ideally, avoid multitasking when checking email. That’s because it becomes easier to go through everything if you minimize distractions and stay focused.

Tim Ferriss discusses a great email template hack in his bestseller The 4-hour week:

“Due to the heavy workload, I currently check and answer ET emails twice a day at 12:00 noon. [or your time zone] and 4:00 p.m. ET. If you need urgent help (please make sure it is urgent) that cannot wait until 12:00 or 16:00, please contact me by phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX. “

The takeaways here are pretty simple but profound.

First, emails can wait. Second, if it is very urgent, DO NOT send an email. Instead, pick up the phone.

2. Create labels, folders, and categories

One way to simplify email management is through organization. This includes setting up labels, folders and categories.

Note that there is no standard rule for creating categories.

It would totally depend on the person, the emails they are receiving, and how best to separate your messages.

For example, someone in finance might need multiple folders. One for bills, one for refunds, and so on.

A marketing employee could have folders such as Incoming, Guest Post Requests, advertising, Etc.

The key is to prioritize, group, and sort emails into categories.

The greatest benefit of organizing your emails like this is that you can easily find specific emails with just a few clicks.

In addition to creating simple folders, you can set up parent categories and create child categories.

For example, to do this in Gmail, go to your inbox and view the left sidebar menu in full view.

Under the tab “Categories” you will find “Manage Labels”. Click here on “Create new label”.

Each label you create is basically a folder. So give it a suitable (search-friendly) name.

You can also assign different colors to your labels in Gmail.

3. Touch once

The touch-it-once principle is based on quick decisions when dealing with e-mails.

It is also known as the Only Handle It Once (OHIO) method.

The idea here is that revisiting an email over and over again is a waste of time.

So you touch it once, take an action, put it down, and then move on to the next email.

The Touch-It-Once principle may seem simple, but it can get a little tricky when it comes to email as we tend to postpone replying to emails.

However, this attitude is important as most of us deal with large amounts of email on a daily basis.

That way you won’t get distracted all the time by thinking of unanswered emails, which can be dramatic lower your productivity.

4. Follow the 1 minute rule

The one minute rule will help you manage both your email and your time better.

That means, if it only takes a minute to reply to an email, do it right away.

This way, you don’t sit on emails that can be edited and filed immediately. This will also clear up your inbox faster.

A variant of this is the two-minute rule – introduced by David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done.

The concept remains the same here: if it only takes 2 minutes to reply to an email, do it right away.

5. Read from top to bottom, write from bottom to top

Atish Davda, CEO of EquityZen, proposes a unique way to search your inbox.

Read emails by thread in reverse chronological order and answer them in chronological order.

According to Atish Davda:

“This nuanced hack takes advantage of the fact that some people reply to emails instantly, sometimes trigger an email ‘tennis match’, eat up the hour you take to deal with all of your inbox, and leave you behind. Replying to emails in chronological order is less likely to get tangled up in emails and be more likely to stay on track. “

6. Know when to send email

Email management is about both the type and volume of emails you send and the type and volume of emails you receive.

There is a famous saying, if you want to receive less email, send fewer emails.

When it comes to sending them, it depends on the nature of your job.

That’s because there are certain functions in which employees do most of their day-to-day work with email.

For example, if you work on customer success, you have to contact existing customers on a regular basis. And usually email is the preferred channel for that.

In such a role, make sure your communication is clear and precise.

You can send fewer emails by choosing which conversations you want to have via email and which you want to have via a phone call.

If you were simply notifying a customer of an update, an email would work.

However, if you want to check in with a customer and find out what they think of their use of your product or service, do so over a phone call. Otherwise, this can lead to a lot of back and forth about email.

Features like Sales and Lead Gen (teams that send out bulk emails) require you to confirm that your emails are being delivered properly.

If your emails end up in the spam folder or drop off frequently, then there is a possibility that your domain will be blocked.

So use a tool to Verify email addresses can be useful.

That way, you can be sure that you are emailing the right person and that your time and energy will not be wasted.

7. Convert your group email accounts to shared inboxes

Most companies have group email accounts such as [email protected] and [email protected].

They make it easier for outsiders to get in touch with your brand.

But here’s the thing: group emails can get just as annoying and overwhelming as WhatsApp groups.

There is a steady stream of incoming messages in such email accounts Made worse by the fact that there is no easy way to match emails to individuals and keep track of those tasks.

You need to be able to streamline email arriving in group mailboxes and organize workflows so that there is less clutter and each team member is clear about which emails they need to work on.

Here’s where one Email ticket system how hiver can be useful.

It helps you manage shared customer support inboxes right from your Gmail inbox.

With just one click, you can assign emails to everyone on your team as tasks – without using forwards.

You can also communicate back and forth internally without having to write further e-mails.

Wrap up

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to managing email, so it’s important to note that not all of these strategies will work for you.

You may need to experiment to see which tips will work for you.

Make sure your email management is structured and you will see the implications for your entire workflow.

Whichever approach you take, consistency is crucial if you want to have a clean and organized inbox.

This post was written by Ganesh Mukundan, a content marketer at winter who loves everything about customer experience and customer service.

Ganesh loves telling exciting customer stories, researching CX trends and dealing with concepts such as VoC and customer journey mapping.

When he’s not working, Ganesh enjoys rapping, playing soccer, and watching Nordic TV shows.